• Best of luck to the class of 2024 for their HSC exams. You got this!
    Let us know your thoughts on the HSC exams here
  • YOU can help the next generation of students in the community!
    Share your trial papers and notes on our Notes & Resources page
MedVision ad

Finishing exam paper in time limit? (1 Viewer)

JBee

Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
Messages
39
Gender
Female
HSC
2013
Hi guys,
so I've been doing lots of ext1 maths papers lately, and although I'm coping with most of the questions pretty well I can never finish in 2 hrs :/

Does anyone have any tips so I can maximise my marks/ get as much of the paper done as possible?

Thanks!
 

NFmusic1995

Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
274
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
Do speed tests, i.e do Q1-5s in 55minutes, what i do, and once ur good at 1-5 u can spend the rest of your time on the harder parts
 

shak99

Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2009
Messages
318
Location
Sydney
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2009
Uni Grad
2014
Set a time limit in your head for the easy questions during reading time.

There's always gonna be hard questions, you just have to practice time management.
 

Makematics

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Messages
1,829
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
you may have been doing the old format (84 marks), rather than the new and easier 70 mark format. anyways fully agree with above, and also my personal advice is rush any question that requires to prove a GIVEN result, but slow down a bit if it asks you to find an answer, so you are less likely to make mistakes.
 

AnimeX

Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2012
Messages
588
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
you may have been doing the old format (84 marks), rather than the new and easier 70 mark format. anyways fully agree with above, and also my personal advice is rush any question that requires to prove a GIVEN result, but slow down a bit if it asks you to find an answer, so you are less likely to make mistakes.
Woah, never thought of this. Thanks for the tip!

I'm all good until I encounter a question which I get stuck on, I tend to spend 10mins+ on these and don't move on until i realise i'm losing time :(

^any ways to combat this problem?

Do you guys do MC first or last?
 

RealiseNothing

what is that?It is Cowpea
Joined
Jul 10, 2011
Messages
4,591
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
I do MC first, it's an easy 10 marks and good way to warm up imo.
 

Makematics

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Messages
1,829
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
I do MC first, it's an easy 10 marks and good way to warm up imo.
unless you do my school's MC and they stuff up a question and it screws up your mindset for the rest of the exam because you had to skip a MC.

also i always to it in normal order unless i have to skip something which i try not to do. does anyone do it backwards or something?
 

Makematics

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Messages
1,829
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
Woah, never thought of this. Thanks for the tip!

I'm all good until I encounter a question which I get stuck on, I tend to spend 10mins+ on these and don't move on until i realise i'm losing time :(

^any ways to combat this problem?

Do you guys do MC first or last?
defs move on after 5 mins i reckon. i only move on if im REALLY stuck, but then again it differs from person to person. personally, my mindset gets messed up if i cant do an early question. also, if the papers is badly made/too easy, i tend to get really pissed off, which is most of the time for my school's maths exams lol. luckily i wont get pissed at the hsc cos its usually well made.
 

iBibah

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2012
Messages
1,374
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
unless you do my school's MC and they stuff up a question and it screws up your mindset for the rest of the exam because you had to skip a MC.

also i always to it in normal order unless i have to skip something which i try not to do. does anyone do it backwards or something?
I always do things in order too unless its really necessary to skip.
 

Makematics

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Messages
1,829
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
i do chem and maths in order. anything thats essay based, i will do my worser area last if there is more than one essay.
 

simplyinsanity

Active Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2012
Messages
215
Location
Sydney
Gender
Female
HSC
2013
Hey. I did my Maths Extension1 HSC last year. I actually found that it was better to try all the questions first and then work on MC.

For two main reasons:
1) If you're running short on time, MC is something you can randomly guess at and still have a shot of gettng marks.
2) You will often need to do half a page of working to answer that one MC Question. And if you make a small mistake anyway... There's no carry on error.
 

SharkeyBoy

Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2012
Messages
180
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
defs move on after 5 mins i reckon. i only move on if im REALLY stuck, but then again it differs from person to person. personally, my mindset gets messed up if i cant do an early question. also, if the papers is badly made/too easy, i tend to get really pissed off, which is most of the time for my school's maths exams lol. luckily i wont get pissed at the hsc cos its usually well made.
My school is always making mistakes in our math papers as well...
In our half yearly, we had 3 questions that had to be changed - it wasted like 5minutes. One of the questions was a 'prove it equals ...' and the value that they gave was wrong. They then gave everyone a mark after the exam because the teacher who wrote the exam wasn't there at the time and so no-one wanted to change the value that needs to be proven
 

mads21

New Member
Joined
Aug 29, 2011
Messages
18
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
2013
Hey. I did my Maths Extension1 HSC last year. I actually found that it was better to try all the questions first and then work on MC.

For two main reasons:
1) If you're running short on time, MC is something you can randomly guess at and still have a shot of gettng marks.
2) You will often need to do half a page of working to answer that one MC Question. And if you make a small mistake anyway... There's no carry on error.
This sounds like a good idea, in half yearly's I didn't finish the last question
 

Carrotsticks

Retired
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Messages
9,494
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Hey. I did my Maths Extension1 HSC last year. I actually found that it was better to try all the questions first and then work on MC.

For two main reasons:
1) If you're running short on time, MC is something you can randomly guess at and still have a shot of gettng marks.
2) You will often need to do half a page of working to answer that one MC Question. And if you make a small mistake anyway... There's no carry on error.
Yep, this.

I do MC last too in my Maths exams at uni because for reasons that simply simply simplified in point 2.

My school is always making mistakes in our math papers as well...
In our half yearly, we had 3 questions that had to be changed - it wasted like 5minutes. One of the questions was a 'prove it equals ...' and the value that they gave was wrong. They then gave everyone a mark after the exam because the teacher who wrote the exam wasn't there at the time and so no-one wanted to change the value that needs to be proven
Very unprofessional on their part.
 

Makematics

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Messages
1,829
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
i would never leave MC till tast, especially for 4U. this is because the first 10 marks are usually free marks, while the questions towards the end are really hard, and if you go from Q11-Q16 and then MC then you will spend lots of time on the last questions and it could quite possibly happen that you barely get any marks in Q15-16 AND guess all the MC, which would be a dreadful outcome.
 

simplyinsanity

Active Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2012
Messages
215
Location
Sydney
Gender
Female
HSC
2013
i would never leave MC till tast, especially for 4U. this is because the first 10 marks are usually free marks, while the questions towards the end are really hard, and if you go from Q11-Q16 and then MC then you will spend lots of time on the last questions and it could quite possibly happen that you barely get any marks in Q15-16 AND guess all the MC, which would be a dreadful outcome.
Well, this is 3u ;) And although the MC questions are usually quite straightforward, they can require large amounts of working/calculating with no allocations for carry on.

No, I would do try every question first, leaving all the parts I couldn't get straight away (most likely chunks of the final few questions), then do multiple choice and finally go back to the parts I didn't know before.
 

Makematics

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Messages
1,829
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
Well, this is 3u ;) And although the MC questions are usually quite straightforward, they can require large amounts of working/calculating with no allocations for carry on.

No, I would do try every question first, leaving all the parts I couldn't get straight away (most likely chunks of the final few questions), then do multiple choice and finally go back to the parts I didn't know before.
fair enough, everyone is different. whatever works :) although thats alright if u skip stuff, personally i hate skipping Q's
 

koreafantasy

Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2013
Messages
106
Gender
Male
HSC
2013
Practise the easy 'slot in the formula' questions from textbooks. Get good at them, so you can speed through the first half of the paper which consist of simple questions which do not require much thinking so that you can spend more time on the hard 'think' questions.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top